OCEANSIDE: Hearing highlights arguments over Richart deal

Judge not ready to issue ruling in lawsuit against former MiraCosta chief

The legal tussle over a roughly $1.6 million settlement that
MiraCosta College awarded its former president Victoria Munoz
Richart in 2007 was back in a Vista courtroom on Tuesday, where a
judge heard arguments over whether the settlement should be
modified, left alone or voided completely.

Attorneys for Richart said the deal should be left alone or it
must be erased altogether, opening another legal can of worms for
the college and Richart.

Carlsbad activist and attorney Leon Page, whose lawsuit claiming
the payout was an illegal gift of public funds was successful on
appeal, says the settlement can simply be changed to comply with
the law.

Superior Court Judge William S. Dato said Tuesday he wasn't
quite ready to rule on the matter.

Page argued in court that the law allows the judge to reduce the
amount of Richart's settlement, allowing her to keep an amount
equivalent to 18 months salary and benefits and requiring her to
return everything else.

Dato seemed to have a problem with that line of thinking. He
repeatedly asked Page to cite legal precedent --- some other
already-decided case --- to show that the court has the power to
change the terms of a nearly-complete deal willingly entered into
by the college's board of trustees and its former president.

Dato said Richart agreed to resign only after being promised
certain amounts of cash and benefits. Changing the amounts, he
said, would create a new agreement "that clearly was not the deal
that Dr. Richart and the college agreed to."

In written questions posed to both sides before Tuesday's
hearing, the judge asked lawyers to address the fact that the
contract is almost complete. Richart has already resigned, she has
been paid most of her settlement amount and recovering the money
would be complicated.

Randall Winet, one of two attorneys representing Richart,
suggested that the best way to account for so much water having
flowed under the bridge was to allow his client to keep the
money.

He said hundreds of thousands of dollars have been paid in
taxes, and most of the rest of the payout is tied up in investments
that are now worth less than they were in 2007, when the settlement
deal was approved.

Citing a legal case from the 1940s, Winet suggested that the
judge has the power to in essence say "no harm, no foul" and allow
the settlement to stand because there is no evidence that Richart
or anyone else fraudulently brokered the agreement.

Everyone in the courtroom seemed to agree that nullifying
Richart's contract would return her to her former post as president
of MiraCosta College, a post that Winet said she has no desire to
occupy, especially since the position has since been filled.

Nullifying the settlement would also likely lead to another
round of costly lawsuits ---- Richart has recently filed a claim
worth more than $2 million against the college.

Dato told both sides he would consider the legal cases they
cited as he researched his ruling.